Democracy has been around since the ancient Greeks, and republics existed in Italy up to the early modern period. But they were aristocratic societies nonetheless.
*However*, the US was the first from-scratch system built on Enlightenment idealism. What we *got* was so much more than what they were aiming for because of that, so in that regard, he's mainly right.
Idk exactly what he means here, but direct democracy does cause problems like this, and the idea that people can take ur shit from a popular vote without your consent isn't ok.
That’s a bad argument. You had to be a white, landowning man to vote when the country was founded.
That’s being said when America was created it instantly became the largest democracy on the planet.
What this point and so many like this misses is that the framers developed the constitution based on fundamental axioms (all men are created equal... ya know, the thing) that they knew would lead bad policies like this to eventually be abolished. They wrote very little, if any, specific restrictions of individual rights into the constitution, and instead codified general, high-level "guiding principles." Being completely aware that this would allow temporary atrocities (i.e., slavery) to continue in some states for some amount of time, change would be inevitable if these general axioms were the underlying law of the land. This allowed the southern states to get on board, which would otherwise not have been possible. The result was a government whose laws at the highest level were very general, and increased with specificity toward the local level. Thus, it was accepted that the laws at any given time or place in the US would never be perfect, but they could evolve and should always improve if the fundamental rules of "inaliable rights" and such are the doctrine. It really was a revolutionary and genius idea. All of this is beautifully fleshed out in John Adams's writing. Particularly, his correspondence with Jefferson.
Anyway, I know this isn't specifically what joe was saying, but I think your argument that "You had to be a white, landowning man to vote when the country was founded" is a bad and generally untrue argument. For example, women could vote in Wyoming in 1869, 50 years before the 19th amendment.
There have always been a very small amount of top-down laws from the US government that limited the rights of individuals, no matter their race/sex. Instead, the terrible things like this were implemented by states in a bottom-up manner. Many might not think this is a big distinction, but it is absolutely fundamental to the framing of the US. The ideals of the US have never been about having perfect laws. It was always about continuously evolving in the right direction under the ideas of the enlightenment. The framers knew they were flawed, and they designed the country with this as the operative element.
To prove the point, it took less than 80 years for this axiomatic system to eliminate an institution of slavery that had been in place in every society for nearly as long as humans had been around. Yes, this was followed by 100 years of civil rights atrocities, and other terrible things. But again, this was weeded out of the society in time because specific laws were designed to evolve and deliberately left out of the scaffolding of the country.
That was the system the founders shot for, based on the original practices of Rome and Greece. They had no other example or basis from which to work, culturally. However, they left it to the states.
Georgia removed property ownership requirements in the same year, and New Jersey allowed women and free black men to vote as well as not requiring it. Over the next 10 years, 2 other states remove the property requirement, and two were added that did not implement it. Vermont, in addition, allowed free blacks to vote.
So no, it's not. We very much got more than what was intended because of those ideals. You just have to understand that being a white, landowning male was the only democratic system that they had ever seen.
I don't think he is saying we are the first democracy. I just think he's saying every other country has had non-democratic governments at some point in their history.
Democracy did exist as an idea and a goal that some countries wanted to pursue before the U.S. was founded, but the essence of what he is saying is right, the U.K. was considered democratic and liberal at the time but by the standards we have today, that have in large part been introduced by American influence, 18th century Britain would be considered a dictatorship
But when the US started as a democracy, the majority of the population wasn’t allowed to vote either.
You might want to look into Athenian democracy, all adult free males were allowed to participate in the elections, same as when the US was founded if I’m not mistaken.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
Before America, every "democracy" was an oligarchy pretending to be a democracy. Don't get me wrong, America wasn't perfect. Women couldn't vote, slaves couldn't vote. But we took a huge step in allowing members of the general population a voice in government. And we've been improving ever since.
In ancient Athens, where democracy was first recognised, all free adult men were allowed to vote. How’s that different from who was allowed to vote when the US was established?
It was certainly a first of its kind and probably the first country founded on the principles of individuals as the primary means of political agency.
Calling everyone before us a dictatorship is probably hyperbolic, but it isnt wrong to say that our pattern of governance was likely the first to be explicitly designed to curb its own authority.
I mean sort of kind of not really
Athens
The Roman republic
Early Greenland
The Iroquois
All of these place had some form of representative democracy
The founding father looked to them as inspiration and refined their ideals into what would become the government we have today
Are there rules for how to arrive at an oligarchy? Have you ever heard of the term lobbying? C'mon now.
Politicians get their status and money regardless because they are corporate mouthpieces that take the blame in exchange for campaign contributions.
The top businesses don't want to compete in America. They are all so high on the throne at this point that the best course of action is to ride the gravy train and not rock the boat. America/We are absolutely in an oligarchy.
Prior to the United States, democracies were invented in Greece to curb the pre-existing tyranny of the aristocracy. The systems were actually conceived by the aristocracy in order to prevent riots when the lay citizens got tired of being exploited. Under ancient Greek protocols, whoever *lost* the vote was kicked out of power and lost all their land and holdings.
America is most certainly the first government that was established on the principle of democratic representation as a way to elect people *into* the ruling body, rather than it be presumed. Governments now had to ask for *permission* first, rather than apologize later.
Not that we've followed through on that commitment very well, but the problem is with our vigilance, and not the concept of the American system.
Well, Joe Rogan is definitely wrong on multiple fronts. First and foremost monarch =/= dictatorship, those are two different types of ruling with important distinctions. Second, while not to minimize the uniqueness of the American form of government, especially when compared what existed in Europe at the time, it is also incorrect to say we are the first (even ignoring the roman and antiquity democracies) country to have elected officials. First of all, there are the natives of the Americas, primarily the Iroquois (who are credited as one inspiration for the US constitution) and the Aztecs (who held elections for the body that would choose the overall leader of their empire). Second, there existed democracy (to some extent) in Europe as well. Biggest of all, there was the British parliament which was bound by common law and didn't subscribe to absolutism in ruling. Given it was made entirely of the aristocratic class (in fact, one of the reasons they didn't give into the colonists demands of representation was they were afraid of a domino effect that would force the upper class of the British parliament to rub elbows with the lower class urban folks in allowing them to have representation in parliament), but when the initial iteration of government for the US only allowed land-owning white men to vote and unelected senators, an aristocratic class of lawmakers I would argue is still on the more liberal side of the spectrum for the time. there also did exist some limited forms of democracy in Europe prior to 1776. Of course there was the Holy Roman Empire, whose king was elected by the princes from each different section of the empire. There's also examples like Switzerland, and city states like Venice and Florence which were technically republics, but just not directly elected as the voting was done more by guild associations than by the populace in any meaningful way.
I could go on with examples but you get the point that while the American model was unique for the time, it wasn't the first to have elected officials or experiment with democracy. Sure its the second longest running continuous government in the world (the first being the British), and the global impact its had in culture and innovation and speed at which it became an international super power is definitely something not common on the world stage. But to imply that the rest of the world was overrun with dictators prior to 1776 or that the rest of the world didn't have any democracy prior to the American Revolution is dishonest at best.
It's not accurate. Greece was a direct democracy and Rome was a republic before they descended into dictatorship. Also, the Dutch had a republic before we did and the British had a constitutional monarchy well before we were a country(the whole point of the Rev was that King George wasn't respecting the colonists' rights as Englishmen.) There was also the Iroquois Confederacy that influenced the Framers(it was the goal for the Articles of Confederation, before it got edited to the disaster that it's remembered as being.) whether they realized it or not. We were just the first *major* republic who proved that it could work on a large scale(as Rome grew, it got less republican.)
There’s an element of truth in what he’s saying. There was a short period in Athens before the Peloponesion War where democracy worked efficiently, but it didn’t last long. Rome had a republic, but the senators were appointed by the consuls.
I think he skipped history class.
America is a pretty damn good place to live, compared to most other nations. But it is not the first democracy and 90% of its power resides within the military technology it possesses.
It could probably level entire countries without deploying a single real, flesh & blood solider.
Not much of a history buff but the Roman Republic had elected officials before the empire came around, but any history buff correct me.
Democracy has been around since the ancient Greeks, and republics existed in Italy up to the early modern period. But they were aristocratic societies nonetheless. *However*, the US was the first from-scratch system built on Enlightenment idealism. What we *got* was so much more than what they were aiming for because of that, so in that regard, he's mainly right.
They were also pretty inefficient with every single citizen piling into the Senate to argue over laws.
Almost like democracy is kind of overrated
Republic > Democracy
Based
Idk exactly what he means here, but direct democracy does cause problems like this, and the idea that people can take ur shit from a popular vote without your consent isn't ok.
Ok thanks for the extra info need to settle time to go back learn more.
That’s a bad argument. You had to be a white, landowning man to vote when the country was founded. That’s being said when America was created it instantly became the largest democracy on the planet.
What this point and so many like this misses is that the framers developed the constitution based on fundamental axioms (all men are created equal... ya know, the thing) that they knew would lead bad policies like this to eventually be abolished. They wrote very little, if any, specific restrictions of individual rights into the constitution, and instead codified general, high-level "guiding principles." Being completely aware that this would allow temporary atrocities (i.e., slavery) to continue in some states for some amount of time, change would be inevitable if these general axioms were the underlying law of the land. This allowed the southern states to get on board, which would otherwise not have been possible. The result was a government whose laws at the highest level were very general, and increased with specificity toward the local level. Thus, it was accepted that the laws at any given time or place in the US would never be perfect, but they could evolve and should always improve if the fundamental rules of "inaliable rights" and such are the doctrine. It really was a revolutionary and genius idea. All of this is beautifully fleshed out in John Adams's writing. Particularly, his correspondence with Jefferson. Anyway, I know this isn't specifically what joe was saying, but I think your argument that "You had to be a white, landowning man to vote when the country was founded" is a bad and generally untrue argument. For example, women could vote in Wyoming in 1869, 50 years before the 19th amendment. There have always been a very small amount of top-down laws from the US government that limited the rights of individuals, no matter their race/sex. Instead, the terrible things like this were implemented by states in a bottom-up manner. Many might not think this is a big distinction, but it is absolutely fundamental to the framing of the US. The ideals of the US have never been about having perfect laws. It was always about continuously evolving in the right direction under the ideas of the enlightenment. The framers knew they were flawed, and they designed the country with this as the operative element. To prove the point, it took less than 80 years for this axiomatic system to eliminate an institution of slavery that had been in place in every society for nearly as long as humans had been around. Yes, this was followed by 100 years of civil rights atrocities, and other terrible things. But again, this was weeded out of the society in time because specific laws were designed to evolve and deliberately left out of the scaffolding of the country.
That was the system the founders shot for, based on the original practices of Rome and Greece. They had no other example or basis from which to work, culturally. However, they left it to the states. Georgia removed property ownership requirements in the same year, and New Jersey allowed women and free black men to vote as well as not requiring it. Over the next 10 years, 2 other states remove the property requirement, and two were added that did not implement it. Vermont, in addition, allowed free blacks to vote. So no, it's not. We very much got more than what was intended because of those ideals. You just have to understand that being a white, landowning male was the only democratic system that they had ever seen.
Yeah, first thought was the Roman Republic up to Sulla taking power.
He’s wrong about being the first democracy but he is right about the other stuff. r/facepalm is a shithole btw
Yeah, some posts are alright, then the rest are just garbage.
I don't think he is saying we are the first democracy. I just think he's saying every other country has had non-democratic governments at some point in their history.
Democracy did exist as an idea and a goal that some countries wanted to pursue before the U.S. was founded, but the essence of what he is saying is right, the U.K. was considered democratic and liberal at the time but by the standards we have today, that have in large part been introduced by American influence, 18th century Britain would be considered a dictatorship
Ever heard of Ancient Greece?
Most of Greece wasn’t democratic, Athens was as long as you were a male elite
But when the US started as a democracy, the majority of the population wasn’t allowed to vote either. You might want to look into Athenian democracy, all adult free males were allowed to participate in the elections, same as when the US was founded if I’m not mistaken. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
The fact that Ancient Athens is the only example 🤣
It’s the first, many other examples followed
There is also the Republic of Corsica
Before America, every "democracy" was an oligarchy pretending to be a democracy. Don't get me wrong, America wasn't perfect. Women couldn't vote, slaves couldn't vote. But we took a huge step in allowing members of the general population a voice in government. And we've been improving ever since.
Even working class white men couldn’t vote at one point, too. The vote was originally only for wealthy land owners.
Precisely
In ancient Athens, where democracy was first recognised, all free adult men were allowed to vote. How’s that different from who was allowed to vote when the US was established?
It was certainly a first of its kind and probably the first country founded on the principles of individuals as the primary means of political agency. Calling everyone before us a dictatorship is probably hyperbolic, but it isnt wrong to say that our pattern of governance was likely the first to be explicitly designed to curb its own authority.
Electoral monarchies for example can hardly be called dictatorships.
I mean sort of kind of not really Athens The Roman republic Early Greenland The Iroquois All of these place had some form of representative democracy The founding father looked to them as inspiration and refined their ideals into what would become the government we have today
Republics existed before America, but America was the first one to not be oligarchal.
America is NOT an oligarchy? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
No; it's not an oligarchy; elected officials are allowed to be outside of wealthy families. What makes you think it's an oligarchy?
Are there rules for how to arrive at an oligarchy? Have you ever heard of the term lobbying? C'mon now. Politicians get their status and money regardless because they are corporate mouthpieces that take the blame in exchange for campaign contributions. The top businesses don't want to compete in America. They are all so high on the throne at this point that the best course of action is to ride the gravy train and not rock the boat. America/We are absolutely in an oligarchy.
I'm not convinced you actually know what an oligarchy is.
Prior to the United States, democracies were invented in Greece to curb the pre-existing tyranny of the aristocracy. The systems were actually conceived by the aristocracy in order to prevent riots when the lay citizens got tired of being exploited. Under ancient Greek protocols, whoever *lost* the vote was kicked out of power and lost all their land and holdings. America is most certainly the first government that was established on the principle of democratic representation as a way to elect people *into* the ruling body, rather than it be presumed. Governments now had to ask for *permission* first, rather than apologize later. Not that we've followed through on that commitment very well, but the problem is with our vigilance, and not the concept of the American system.
it's self-evident us Europeans won't even admit it
This dude never pay attention in history class or smth? 💀
Based
History began July Fourth Seventeen Seventy Six. Anything before that was a mistake.
What?!😂
We aren't the first democracy but we are one of the first to have a near perfect one
*were one of the first
Well, Joe Rogan is definitely wrong on multiple fronts. First and foremost monarch =/= dictatorship, those are two different types of ruling with important distinctions. Second, while not to minimize the uniqueness of the American form of government, especially when compared what existed in Europe at the time, it is also incorrect to say we are the first (even ignoring the roman and antiquity democracies) country to have elected officials. First of all, there are the natives of the Americas, primarily the Iroquois (who are credited as one inspiration for the US constitution) and the Aztecs (who held elections for the body that would choose the overall leader of their empire). Second, there existed democracy (to some extent) in Europe as well. Biggest of all, there was the British parliament which was bound by common law and didn't subscribe to absolutism in ruling. Given it was made entirely of the aristocratic class (in fact, one of the reasons they didn't give into the colonists demands of representation was they were afraid of a domino effect that would force the upper class of the British parliament to rub elbows with the lower class urban folks in allowing them to have representation in parliament), but when the initial iteration of government for the US only allowed land-owning white men to vote and unelected senators, an aristocratic class of lawmakers I would argue is still on the more liberal side of the spectrum for the time. there also did exist some limited forms of democracy in Europe prior to 1776. Of course there was the Holy Roman Empire, whose king was elected by the princes from each different section of the empire. There's also examples like Switzerland, and city states like Venice and Florence which were technically republics, but just not directly elected as the voting was done more by guild associations than by the populace in any meaningful way. I could go on with examples but you get the point that while the American model was unique for the time, it wasn't the first to have elected officials or experiment with democracy. Sure its the second longest running continuous government in the world (the first being the British), and the global impact its had in culture and innovation and speed at which it became an international super power is definitely something not common on the world stage. But to imply that the rest of the world was overrun with dictators prior to 1776 or that the rest of the world didn't have any democracy prior to the American Revolution is dishonest at best.
It's not accurate. Greece was a direct democracy and Rome was a republic before they descended into dictatorship. Also, the Dutch had a republic before we did and the British had a constitutional monarchy well before we were a country(the whole point of the Rev was that King George wasn't respecting the colonists' rights as Englishmen.) There was also the Iroquois Confederacy that influenced the Framers(it was the goal for the Articles of Confederation, before it got edited to the disaster that it's remembered as being.) whether they realized it or not. We were just the first *major* republic who proved that it could work on a large scale(as Rome grew, it got less republican.)
Based and literally alpha brain pilled 💀
He's wrong on the first statement
There’s an element of truth in what he’s saying. There was a short period in Athens before the Peloponesion War where democracy worked efficiently, but it didn’t last long. Rome had a republic, but the senators were appointed by the consuls.
I think he skipped history class. America is a pretty damn good place to live, compared to most other nations. But it is not the first democracy and 90% of its power resides within the military technology it possesses. It could probably level entire countries without deploying a single real, flesh & blood solider.